As Howard Zinn points out in his brief introduction to this volume,
Alexander Berkman is one of the 'lost heroes of American radicalism'. The
history of the US is a history of brutal class rule and imperialism, but
also the history of those who fought back.
In 1892 Berkman, a Russian-born immigrant, shot Henry Frick who was
responsible for killing 11 strikers. Frick undoubtedly had it coming, and
the first criticism of Berkman is that he didn't shoot straight enough
to kill. For this he got 15 years in jail, and the first part of this book
gives a vivid account of the cruelty and degradation he endured in prison.
What is most interesting is his own development. To begin with he showed
much of the elitism which often characterises anarchism - he despised his
fellow prisoners because they were only interested in themselves and not
in 'the cause'. As time went by he developed a sense of solidarity shown
in his organising a clandestine prison magazine. He also rethought his
attitude to terrorism: while not repenting his act, he realised bullets
could not substitute for class struggle.
The most exciting part of the book deals with his activities after
release. He edited Mother Earth, the paper of his lifelong friend Emma
Goldman, and then in 1916 he launched The Blast. It campaigned for press
freedom and birth control, and above all against American entry into the
First World War. At an anti-war meeting in 1917 he declared, 'America says
we are going to fight Germany because we want to give them liberty and
democracy. If you believe that you can give a people liberty and democracy
from the outside, if you believe you can give a people or a nation liberty
at the end of a bayonet or with bullets, go ahead. But if you are so generous
with liberty as to carry it to Germany across the sea, why don't you retail
liberty right here in this country?' - words that could well be reprinted
today.
Berkman and Goldman were deported to Russia. Despite his hostility
to Marxism, Berkman insisted that the revolution was not a Bolshevik coup
but a massive social revolt involving millions of workers and peasants.
He met Lenin (who was anxious to draw in anarchist support) and clearly
felt some sympathy for the Bolshevik leader.
His account of life during the bitter civil war period is deeply critical
but contains some interesting insights. He tells of meeting a peasant who
liked the Bolsheviks but hated the Communists: that is, he supported the
ideals of the revolution, but resented the authoritarianism of the new
regime. His account of the Cheka as being both corrupt and incompetent
is undoubtedly valid - but he gives no suggestion as to how a revolutionary
society threatened by counter-revolutionaries on all sides could have protected
itself.
For Berkman the Bolsheviks' great mistake was not to have abolished
the state immediately in 1917. For him all government was the enemy. And
sometimes he tried to have it both ways. He criticised the Bolsheviks for
failing to introduce complete equality immediately, yet also condemned
the brutality with which the former privileged classes were stripped of
their possessions.
Berkman spent his remaining years of life as a stateless exile. He
continued to propagandise for anarchism. His pamphlet The ABC of Anarchism,
which forms the final part of this book, shows both the strengths and weaknesses
of anarchism. He gives a splendid picture of how a world based on human
cooperation might operate. But he insists that 'every human being who is
not devoid of feeling and common sense is inclined to anarchism'. This
simply evades the problem of how the new world will be made by those warped
by the old. And he admits that the achievement of anarchism will be 'gradual'
and 'far in the future' - yet he had condemned the Bolsheviks for not doing
everything immediately.
As the story of a rebel who fought and suffered for his beliefs this
book is often inspiring. As an account of how we might actually change
the world it has little to offer.